TOWN OF WOODVILLE — Warm feelings rushed over grief-stricken Dale and Karen Mahnke as they greeted the six teenagers standing in the front porch of their rural home.
“They already had heard rumors,” Karen said of their visit one Sunday in May.
“One of them had enough sense to ask what happened,” Dale added.
The day before, Nikki, the Mahnke’s 18-year-old daughter, committed suicide at home. Her parents declined to specify how. The teens wanted to know why she took her life.
Six months later, the Mahnkes say they still cannot pinpoint what troubled their daughter in the hours before she took her life May 2.
Her death was the first in a cluster of suicides to hit Kaukauna the past six months. Three other Kaukauna High School students have since taken their lives.
Because of the “domino effect” one suicide can have in a community, a growing chorus is calling for heightened awareness. Local suicide prevention advocates are forming coalitions. There is chatter at high schools, colleges and churches.
With suicide the third-leading cause of death among young people 15 to 19, the aim is to pierce the cloak of secrecy and stigma that surrounds it.
Only accidents and homicides occur more frequently, according to 2006 data from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
“We want to have it in the forefront so people are talking about it,” said Mary Sullivan, a liaison for Community for Hope of the Fox Cities, a spin-off of the group in Oshkosh with the same name. The Fox Cities group is looking for volunteers and financial support to set up shop.
Taboo topic
Until a few weeks ago, the topic was taboo.
Parents like the Mahnkes say they wanted to start a conversation but found that some people were uneasy. They worried talking about suicide might cause someone to do it.
Brillion resident Lisa Frassetto found the same kind of discomfort after her 16-year-old daughter, Kristy, committed suicide in September. People she knows avoided her, she said. Her son’s friends stopped calling for a while. At the grocery store, some would steer out of her aisle.
“People have (this thought) that maybe I wasn’t a good parent, and that’s why Kristy did it. Or I didn’t see the signs, that’s why Kristy did it, or I should have seen it coming. They don’t know what to say to me,” she said.
Each night as the Mahnkes prepare for the next day, they wonder whether signs were missed.
They knew Nikki had had personal setbacks before, but each time they had watched her bounce back.
They said she suffered from depression, and even though she hated taking pills, she was undergoing treatment.
Life at home was copasetic. Her graduation at Kaukauna High School was a month away when she died.
“Nobody comes back from suicide and says why they did it,” Dale said. “She never talked about it. She was always (saying) how she was going to do this, she was going to do that.”
Frassetto has similar feelings about not knowing the inner turmoil her daughter, Kristy, was grappling with.
Her grades went from As to Ds and Fs in the last year. She was bubbly one minute, quiet the next. She also was being treated for depression.
“She didn’t want to open up and talk,” Frassetto said.
She found out in June that Kristy had looked up online how to hang oneself. When she confronted her about it, Kristy hid it from her.
She said she only wanted to know how another student had died. Frassetto told a doctor but was told her daughter was going through a phase and she would grow out of it.
“Deep down inside there was something that bothered me,” she said. “I would tell parents if there is something that isn’t right — even if a doctor or counselors say to them everything is OK — pursue it.”
An expert’s view
Ann Dake, executive director of equine-assisted therapy and counseling services in Shiocton, says suicidal young people can be a difficult group to treat.
Developmentally, they can’t express themselves in talk therapy. Oftentimes, they don’t want to be in counseling.
“Counseling can be such a (confrontational), interrogative-type situation,” she said. “It’s not what it is, but it can feel that way to a kid.”
Suicide wasn’t always a young person’s disease.
During the past 60 years, the suicide rate has quadrupled for males 15 to 24 and doubled for females in that age group.
Among 10- to 14-year olds, the rate jumped by more than 50 percent between 1981 and 2006.
Research also shows that within a typical high school classroom, it is likely that three students — one boy and two girls — have made suicide attempts in the past year.
Bullying can play a role. The Journal of Pediatrics found that youths threatened or injured by peers were 2.4 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts and 3.3 times more likely to exhibit suicidal behavior than those who are not bullied.
A 2006 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of high school students found that 15 percent seriously considered suicide, 11 percent created a plan and 7 percent tried to take their lives in the 12 months before the survey.
Youth organizations like Life! Promotions are drawing attention to online networks where teens can discuss the topic one-on-one with “chat coaches” or tell their stories.
“It’s a place to share their stories and get it out before it’s too late,” Bob Lenz said of the Web site heartsupport.com, which gives young people a forum to post stories and receive feedback from their peers.
Other features on the HopeLine include story clips and resources to help teens overcome a range of issues such as drug and alcohol abuse, cutting, school problems and relationship addiction.
An outlet
“We work a lot on hopes and dreams,” said Dake, the executive director who runs CHAPS (Children with Horses Achieving Productivity and Success) Academy Inc. in Shiocton. “Once you can create a vision for the future, it’s easier to think about what life might be instead of (feeling) life is hopeless.”
The academy yearly serves 50 to 55 young people ranging in age from 8 to mid-20s in its Hope Lives suicide prevention program. They and their families make up 70 percent of what the organization does.
Two years ago, Dake started to offer group services to students at a local elementary school. The program now works with students in Shiocton, Appleton, Freedom and Black Creek school districts. Expansion to other schools is under consideration.
The setting is ideal for young people who sometimes struggle to express to an adult what they are feeling. It is peaceful. They are with peers who maybe are dealing with similar issues. And because the horses tend to mirror human emotions, the weight is lifted off of their shoulders from having to say what they are experiencing.
“Why is Rocky so sad or upset today? Maybe the herd is bullying him,” Dake said. “It gives them the ability to put it on the horse.”
They work together to accomplish tasks and participate in obstacle courses and riding activities.
“It’s very powerful to get a 1,500 pound animal to do what you ask it to do,” she said.
The program has successfully treated more than 200 youths, primarily girls and young women, and their families over the past five years. Referrals for boys are few but increasing every year.
Frassetto is hopeful schools can do more in the way of cyber-bullying prevention and encouraging students to treat others with respect.
She remembered seeing texts on her daughter’s phone that were offensive from boys and girls.
“It really affected her. That makes me angry. That’s the part I’m angry about,” she said.
She looks forward to sharing with students how her daughter’s suicide has affected her family.
“Ask for help. Don’t be like Kristy and end everything and give up everything in your life. You have so much to give and to look forward to,” Frassetto says she wants to tell students.
The Mahnkes say they don’t pretend to be experts. All they seek is to prevent further tragedies in their community.
It’s what prompted them to keep their doors open to Nikki’s friends and other visiting teens.
Karen, 52, turned to the social networking site, Facebook so Kaukauna teens could make her a “friend.” The list is up to 30.
Dale is “Bear” and Karen is “Mom.”
“What I get from when I leave (their house) is this overwhelming sense that things are going to be OK,” said Samantha Lotto, 19, one of Nikki’s closest friends, who now is in regular contact with the family.
Sitting in their dining room table, Dale and Karen are surrounded by Nikki’s high school artwork and photographs on display in the walls, scrapbooks and furniture fixtures.
“She was a girl. She was full of life. It can happen to anybody,” Dale said.
